Well, who'd a thunk it...???

[504GL]

Is big point of RFT is that the car manufacturer no longer have to make room in the car for a spare?

The other advantage of RFT's is to competely screw up the ride on your car as well.

[The Liberator]

Runflats are to be avoided at all costs! If the 500 came with runflats I would never have bought one. Slightly pointless IMHO. Tyres are so good these days that getting a flat and going off the road into a tree quite frankly doesn't concern me. The thing that annoys me about modern cars and tyres is how they're just making tyres wider and wider. Firstly it kills economy, secondly it's unnecessary cost and thirdly it means modern cars are crap in the snow and ice when it comes. I'm going to get larfed at here but back in January I shelled out on some narrower winter rubber to go on some cheap 14" steelies and the ride is better, traction is better, doesn't handle like a greased pig and fuel economy is better too.

You won't hear me laughing, one of my beefs with the 500 is that it is over-tyred, 185/55 15 on a 69bhp car. I imagine it is better in almost every respect on more modest rubber.

[504GL]

Runflats are to be avoided at all costs! If the 500 came with runflats I would never have bought one. Slightly pointless IMHO. Tyres are so good these days that getting a flat and going off the road into a tree quite frankly doesn't concern me. The thing that annoys me about modern cars and tyres is how they're just making tyres wider and wider. Firstly it kills economy, secondly it's unnecessary cost and thirdly it means modern cars are crap in the snow and ice when it comes. I'm going to get larfed at here but back in January I shelled out on some narrower winter rubber to go on some cheap 14" steelies and the ride is better, traction is better, doesn't handle like a greased pig and fuel economy is better too.

You won't hear me laughing, one of my beefs with the 500 is that it is over-tyred, 185/55 15 on a 69bhp car. I imagine it is better in almost every respect on more modest rubber.

Mine is on 195/45 R16's so even worse. My 500 was pretty much useless when there was fresh snow on the ground but with the Vredestein Snowtrac 3's I bought it's fantastichttp://members.iinet.net.au/~fenix1983/ ... erence.jpg

[Talbotman]

Nothing wrong in buying a new car....after all our old shiters were once new as well. But people are just being spun the wrong facts about getting the best deal for their new cars - and the life expectancy of them - if i did go for a brand new car and i myself have sold a few thousand of the things in my time id drive it until it dropped - the whole propeganda that a car suddenly becomes a liability after its std 3 year warranty. The sad fact is that people that have gone for scrappage are gonna have a huge shock if they consider p/xing their cars in a few yrs.........the immediate effects of it all are not going to be apparent until at least 3 to 4 yrs down the line to the punters and the motor trade.

[504GL]

Nothing wrong in buying a new car....after all our old shiters were once new as well. But people are just being spun the wrong facts about getting the best deal for their new cars - and the life expectancy of them - if i did go for a brand new car and i myself have sold a few thousand of the things in my time id drive it until it dropped - the whole propeganda that a car suddenly becomes a liability after its std 3 year warranty. The sad fact is that people that have gone for scrappage are gonna have a huge shock if they consider p/xing their cars in a few yrs.........the immediate effects of it all are not going to be apparent until at least 3 to 4 yrs down the line to the punters and the motor trade.

Yeah some people really get sold funny ideas. The ones that buy a diseasel new and then sell it a few years later always make me laugh. You buy something that only really makes sense as a long term investment only to sell it to someone else who's. On the 500 it's a £1400 option and it's going to take a long time to get that money back in fuel Even if you do keep it long enough to make the money back the diseasel requires oil changes roughly twice as often as the petrol cars because the diseasel has a DPF and a lot of issues like RISING oil levels, clogged DPF's and also the clutches on some of them are really noisy.Someone on another forum is even trying to argue that the diseasel is a better engine than the 8 valve 1.2 which Fiat have been making for almost 20 years Doing my sums it takes something like 10 years to even consider breaking even purely based on fuel costs

[Mr_Bo11ox]

To be fair, a lot of 'unexotic' modern NA petrol engines are just god-awful and many (including myself) would pay extra for anything that made progress a little bit less grindingly asthmatic.

[fiatdaft]

and of course,it depends on how many miles you do per year.

[504GL]

To be fair, a lot of 'unexotic' modern NA petrol engines are just god-awful and many (including myself) would pay extra for anything that made progress a little bit less grindingly asthmatic.

True enough. I won't lie and say that the engine in my 500 will be thought of in 20 years time with great fondness but it is surprisingly torquey low down for a 1.2 which makes it good to drive around town. The engine in my 406 was an old 1.9 and I'm sure diesels these days are better but there was just something so deeply unsatisfying about driving a diesel that I never even bothered testdriving the diseasel 500 Call me crazy but I'm the sort of person who's happy to drive something slow and economical or fast and a bit thirsty and I can't be bothered with something inbetween

[wuvvum]

406's with the 1905cc diesel lump are a deeply uninspiring driving experience. Even though the on-paper performance figures aren't actually that bad, for some reason they always feel really sluggish. My Espace, on the other hand, is actually quite good fun to drive hard - it's got plenty of torque, revs reasonably willingly and being a DTI is less likely to have an OM NOM NOM SUMP OIL incident like the DCIs seem prone to doing. In fact I'd say it's better to drive than the 2-litre petrol version, where I'd take a 1.8 petrol 406 over a 1.9TD any day.

[Milford Cubicle]

Conversely I found the Xantia TD I test drove nippy enough, though it didn't feel as rapid from low speeds as my similarly engined 405 TD.Are they lighter than 406s?

[M'coli]

Runflats are to be avoided at all costs! If the 500 came with runflats I would never have bought one. Slightly pointless IMHO. Tyres are so good these days that getting a flat and going off the road into a tree quite frankly doesn't concern me. The thing that annoys me about modern cars and tyres is how they're just making tyres wider and wider. Firstly it kills economy, secondly it's unnecessary cost and thirdly it means modern cars are crap in the snow and ice when it comes. I'm going to get larfed at here but back in January I shelled out on some narrower winter rubber to go on some cheap 14" steelies and the ride is better, traction is better, doesn't handle like a greased pig and fuel economy is better too.

You won't hear me laughing, one of my beefs with the 500 is that it is over-tyred, 185/55 15 on a 69bhp car. I imagine it is better in almost every respect on more modest rubber.

*>ahem<* my mk2 Cav 1300 runs around on this size tyre and it works nicely, no problems during the snow either.

[504GL]

Runflats are to be avoided at all costs! If the 500 came with runflats I would never have bought one. Slightly pointless IMHO. Tyres are so good these days that getting a flat and going off the road into a tree quite frankly doesn't concern me. The thing that annoys me about modern cars and tyres is how they're just making tyres wider and wider. Firstly it kills economy, secondly it's unnecessary cost and thirdly it means modern cars are crap in the snow and ice when it comes. I'm going to get larfed at here but back in January I shelled out on some narrower winter rubber to go on some cheap 14" steelies and the ride is better, traction is better, doesn't handle like a greased pig and fuel economy is better too.

You won't hear me laughing, one of my beefs with the 500 is that it is over-tyred, 185/55 15 on a 69bhp car. I imagine it is better in almost every respect on more modest rubber.

*>ahem<* my mk2 Cav 1300 runs around on this size tyre and it works nicely, no problems during the snow either.

My 500 only weighs 865 kg's though, I suspect your Cavalier weighs a lot more than that.

[Milford Cubicle]

My Astra has 195/55/15 rubber and it's utterly appalling in the snow.

[504GL]

Conversely I found the Xantia TD I test drove nippy enough, though it didn't feel as rapid from low speeds as my similarly engined 405 TD.Are they lighter than 406s?

Yeah the 406 is heavier. The only thing I liked about the turdo diesel lump was the fact that you could do a bit of left foot braking and build up the boost whilst you were behind someone and then unleash the POWAAAAA to overtake Still, I'd rather drive the wifes car and just have the power available to overtake without having to lfb.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

865kg eh? Thats pretty impressive, I thought theyd weigh more than that.

[M'coli]

/\/\/\ Yeah, I'm shocked and stunned to find the 500 weighs less than the Cavalier (by about 170kg).

[504GL]

/\/\/\ Yeah, I'm shocked and stunned to find the 500 weighs less than the Cavalier (by about 170kg).

and IMHO your car is probably overtyred by the standards of cars from the 70's. My 131 Mirafiori 1.6 weighed a bit over 1000kg I think and that only had 155's or 165'sBtw the 1.4 500 weighs 930 and the 1.3 diseasel is 980 so perhaps not quite as good as they sound I guess.I would have gladly run narrower tyres than 175's on my 500 well but the handbook states that the 175 is the narrowest I can go for I bet if I ran 155's or 165's which are going to be even better in the snow and someone crashed into me I'd get blamed for it by insurance

[Rusty Pelican]

My Astra has 195/55/15 rubber and it's utterly appalling in the snow.

Remove " in the snow " for what i think of my Astra

[M'coli]

/\/\/\ Yeah, I'm shocked and stunned to find the 500 weighs less than the Cavalier (by about 170kg).

and IMHO your car is probably overtyred by the standards of cars from the 70's. My 131 Mirafiori 1.6 weighed a bit over 1000kg I think and that only had 155's or 165's

The car came with baldy 165r13s which I swapped for some 185/70r13s from my old Cavalier, and it transformed the handling. It was very similar to the difference my old Metro had between the 135s I was forced to buy at first and the 155/70s I stuck on when I could afford it ( they were 2-3 times the price...), much lighter steering, less steering lock into corners, better feedback and response.Then the 185/55s came up at £40 so I bought them, and again an improvement, but not as big a difference.The Cav's an 80s brief, not a 70s one(let me just split that hair!) and 55 section tyres are nicely 80s, too. That said, I'd have liked to try my Avenger on 185/55s too as the 155r13s it came with were a bit too bouncy for my liking. I suppose it's down to personal taste and feel too, and for me 55 section strikes a nice balance between too squashy and wallowy and getting your fillings rattled out!

[garbaldy]

Is big point of RFT is that the car manufacturer no longer have to make room in the car for a spare?

The other advantage of RFT's is to competely screw up the ride on your car as well.

they sure do the ride is as hard as a whores heart, i wonder if the reason for the RFT,s is down to money saveing or to get a good emissions figure.

865kg eh? Thats pretty impressive, I thought theyd weigh more than that.

thats pretty light for a modern but i wonder how much does the original weigh

[Tayne]

.

[garbaldy]

865kg eh? Thats pretty impressive, I thought theyd weigh more than that.

thats pretty light for a modern but i wonder how much does the original weigh

499kg.

crickey no need for a jack then.that must make it about the only car that can legally be aframed then.

[The Liberator]

^^^^ The first nuova 500s were 470kg, the last ones with the 126 engine, 525kg. The 1960 500D was listed at 500kg, I think the 499 comes from the conversion to pounds, and back.

[Tayne]

.

[504GL]

865kg eh? Thats pretty impressive, I thought theyd weigh more than that.

thats pretty light for a modern but i wonder how much does the original weigh

499kg.

crickey no need for a jack then.that must make it about the only car that can legally be aframed then.

LOL a-framing!!!!!! My dad has a 500f back in Australia which he's restored and back in the 90's we actually pushed it a few miles down bike paths to where one of his friends lived (he had a massive shed where it could stay out of the weather) and it was no more taxing than riding a bike to be honest! Cut some holes in the floor and it really could be a flintstones car, it's that bloody light. When it came to actually take it in to get bead blasted and painted in two pack it only took a couple of people to get it onto the trailer as well.

[504GL]

/\/\/\ Yeah, I'm shocked and stunned to find the 500 weighs less than the Cavalier (by about 170kg).

and IMHO your car is probably overtyred by the standards of cars from the 70's. My 131 Mirafiori 1.6 weighed a bit over 1000kg I think and that only had 155's or 165's

The car came with baldy 165r13s which I swapped for some 185/70r13s from my old Cavalier, and it transformed the handling. It was very similar to the difference my old Metro had between the 135s I was forced to buy at first and the 155/70s I stuck on when I could afford it ( they were 2-3 times the price...), much lighter steering, less steering lock into corners, better feedback and response.Then the 185/55s came up at £40 so I bought them, and again an improvement, but not as big a difference.The Cav's an 80s brief, not a 70s one(let me just split that hair!) and 55 section tyres are nicely 80s, too. That said, I'd have liked to try my Avenger on 185/55s too as the 155r13s it came with were a bit too bouncy for my liking. I suppose it's down to personal taste and feel too, and for me 55 section strikes a nice balance between too squashy and wallowy and getting your fillings rattled out!

BTW I didn't mean that you car was from the 70's, just that compared to cars from the 70's it's overtyred. In my 500 with the 195's on it feels like you've got an airbrake or something on. All this BS about fuel economy and CO2 and they go and waste a good 10% of fuel just turning bigger tyres around for little or no benefit. I'm only 26 so I shouldn't give a crap about fuel economy but I do for some silly reason.